Catherine de Roet
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Treasure buried in fields and discovered centuries later are always in the news these days. These are usually coins, of course, but also jewellery, including posy rings. A posy ring was found in Wales very recently so I was interested to then read about the true meaning of such rings in A Crisis of Truth…
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The Traitor’s Arms?
“Defiance”, “Loveday”, Act of Accord, Agnes Sorel, allegory, Angevin bloodline, Arma Reversata, Ashperton, Ashperton monument, attainder, Blore Heath, Book of Hours, Calais, carvings, Catherine de Roet, Catherine de Valois, Charles VII, chivalry, Chrimes, Christmas, College of Heralds, Cornish rebellion, coronations, Courtauld Institute of Art, Coventry, crowns, Dunstable Chronicle, Earls of Salisbury, Edmund Crouchback, Edmund Duke of Somerset, Edward Hall, Edward IV, Edward of Lancaster, Edward the Black Prince, Elizabeth I, executions, First Battle of St. Albans, fleuur-de-lys, Fox-Davies, France, French College of Arms, Garter stalls, Gascony, Geoffrey Fisher, Great Seal, Hanseatic fleet, Helen Maurer, helmets, Henry Holland Duke of Exeter, Henry IV, Henry VI, Hereford Cathedral, Herefordshire, Hicks, high treason, Historia Anglorum, Hollands, Hon y soit qui mal y pense, House of York, Hugh Despencer, Hugh Despencer the Younger, Humphrey of Gloucester, Ian Mortimer, insanity, inverted arms, Ireland, Jack Cade, Jacques de Saint-George, James II, James VI/I, Jeanne d’Arc, Joan “Beaufort”, John of Bedford, John of Gaunt, Lancastrians, lions, livery collars, Lord of Misrule, Lord Protector of the Realm, Mary de Bohun, Matthew Parris, mortimer claim, Mortimer’s Cross, Nigel Saul, Nikolaus Pevsner, Normans, Northampton, Old St. Paul’s, Order of the Crescent, Order of the Garter, Owain Tudor, Parliament of Devils, Plantagenets, plaster mouldings, propaganda, Ralph Earl of Westmorland, Ralph Griffiths, renaissance, Rene d’Anjou, Restoration, reversed arms, Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, Richard Duke of York, Richard of Salisbury, Rose Troup, Sandwich, Seine, Shakespeare, shields. royal arms, Sir Andrew Trollope, Sir Ralph Grey, squirrel, Staffords, stonemasons, swan badge, Switzerland, symbolism, the Beauforts., tombstones, tournaments, Treaty of Troyes, Tres Rich Heures, Warwick the Kingmaker, Westminster Abbey, Wigmore, William Duke of Suffolk, William Grandison, William Neville Lord Fauconberg, Windsor Castle, Woolhope ClubIn 1840 workmen carrying out repairs to St Bartholomew’s Church, Ashperton, Herefordshire were collecting stones from the ruins of a nearby manor house when they discovered a heavy stone plaque, carved with an elaborate coat of arms, among the rubble. The stone was taken to the church for safekeeping and has hung on the wall…
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Today in 1495 marked the death of Henry VII’s uncle, Jasper Tudor, and so seems an appropriate day for me to post the following extract, which is from The Country Gentry in the Fourteenth Century by N. Denholm-Young, published in 1969. “…It is a crying fault among English historians that they pay only lip-service to…
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Shadow King: the Life and Death of Henry VI
Armagnacs, Beaufort family., biographies, Burgundians, Calder Bridge, Catherine de Roet, Edmund of Langley, Edmund of Rutland, Edward III, Edward IV, France, George Goodwin, Henry V, Henry VI, House of York, John of Gaunt, Lancastrians, Lauren Johnson, Lionel of Antwerp, Margaret of Anjou, Outwood, Pontefract Castle, Readeption, Richard Duke of York, Richard of Salisbury, Sandal Castle, Tim Sutherland, Tower of London, Towton, Wakefield, Wars of the Roses, Winchester PalaceHelen Rae Rants! Shadow King: The Life and Death of Henry VI by Lauren Johnson Head of Zeus Publications, 2020, paperback, 700 pages, £12.00 ISBN 978-1784-979645 <img class=”i-amphtml-intrinsic-sizer” style=”max-width: 100%; display: block !important;” role=”presentation” src=”data:;base64,” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” /> Henry VI has gone down in history as one of England’s worst kings. Not for being cruel…
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Recently, for the purposes of writing fiction, I had cause to check who was admitted to the Garter in 1387. (This is the sort of weird stuff I do all the time and helps explain why for me to write a book takes aeons.) Anyway, the simple answer is Edward of York (later 2nd Duke…
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Recently I came across this fascinating blogpost by an archaeologist called Katharina, who was working on a Bronze Age burial site in Austria. The skeletons her team excavated have recently been DNA tested–and one of them carried the maternal haplogroup J1c2, which is part of the group to which Richard belonged. Richard’s Bronze Age foremother?…
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There are times when researching the past is, for a woman of today, a very insulting experience. This morning at the hairdresser I dipped into a book called Medieval Maidens: Young Women and Gender in England, 1270-1540. (No Hello, Heat or OK for me!) Yes, I knew before I started that I wouldn’t like…
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The 10 greatest medieval royal romances? Some, maybe….
Anne Boleyn, Anne Neville, Anne of Bohemia, Blanche of Lancaster, Catherine de Roet, Catherine de Valois, Cecily Duchess of York, Charles Brandon, Edmund Duke of Somerset, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, Eleanor of Castile, George Duke of Clarence, Henry VIII, Hugh le Despenser, Isobel Neville, John of Gaunt, Mary “Tudor”, Owain Tudor, Phillippa of Hainault, Piers Gaveston, Richard Duke of York, Richard II, Richard IIIWell, my opinion only, of course, but where are John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford/de Roët? I don’t believe his first wife, Blanche, was his greatest love. That honour went to Katherine, for love of whom he went to extraordinary lengths, enduring scandal and opprobrium, but eventually making her his third duchess. And managing to…
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According to Alison Weir, Henry VII was a little twitchy about his descent from John of Gaunt’s notorious mistress (and eventual wife) Katherine de Roët/Swynford. Between them, Gaunt and Katherine produced an illegitimate line of children, the Beauforts, which wasn’t/was/wasn’t legitimate/in line of succession, according to different monarchs. Henry VII was a Beaufort, so you…
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Henry VII’s iffy Beaufort claim….
“Beauforts”, “Tudors”, Blanche of Lancaster, Castile, Catherine de Roet, Constanza of Castile, Edmund of Langley, excepta dignitate regali, Henry IV, Henry VII, illegitimacy, Joan “Beaufort”, John of Gaunt, Lancastrians, Lionel of Antwerp, proclamations, Ralph Earl of Westmorland, Richard II, Richard III, Sir Hugh SwynfordThere is always a howl of outrage if fingers are pointed at Katherine de Roet/Swynford and John of Gaunt, and the legitimacy of their Beaufort children is called into question. The matter is guaranteed to end up with someone’s digit jabbing toward Richard III. Why? Because in his proclamation against Henry Tudor, Richard derided the…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 